I expect that it's a similar situation with encrypted hard drives and secure erasure. The technology is there, but it's just not really a part of anything so it's not used except in special circumstances.

Does anyone know what percentage of personal email is encrypted with PGP or something of the sort? That technology is there, but it's too intrusive and not well integrated. It has to be just another aspect of whatever it's used in.

Privacy is becomming obsolite, but it will make a comback. Right now technology for no privacy is more advance than the privacy protecting tech and the social fabric is accepting. In a few years, I think both of those will change and privacy will become both important and viable again.

@Junko: Yeah the embedded vision work. Put a processor behind the sensor...the algorithms are the trick. We humans are pretty nuanced. You need a passive aggressive behavior filter and a gazillion other algorithms

the problem right now with gestures and speach are that we have to conciously adapt our natural speach or movements for the machine. When I can give my stereo an annoyed look and it turns down a little bit automatically, we've won.

So, with texting being pretty much as basic a skill as is speaking now, did voice control miss its window of opportunity? Or will voice control become popular to the point where people are comfortable speaking again, leaving text as a historical artifact?

@Caleb: I couldn't access my Amazon videos on my Nexus 7. It said they require Msoft Silverlight but could be played on a Kindle (ha!) Then said they requre Adobe Flash and the device does not support Flash!?! Go figure

I had 3 android devices at the time to play with. an htc hero, a rooted nook, and some other phone I can't remember at the moment. Downloading apps for them was horrible. 50% of the time an app just wouldn't load. The rest of the time it expected certain hardware buttons or screen resolution that weren't necessarily there.

I'm also wondering what the community thinks of our story asking if Moore's Law is dead, and what that means to the defense sector in the US, China and elsewhere. That one stirred up a hornet's nest of debate on our message boards...

Doc, Junko: More and more, there is a market for used phones in developing countries. The folks who make the Coinstar machines are thinking of producing vending machines where you can trade in your old phones for cash. They would then be resold in other markets. Interesting business model....gotta be hard. And I wonder what they do about stolen phones...

PCs hit the same level. A 2% increase in capability that is already 1000% more than people use means that it is a commodity. At that point software is more important. Cell phones are rapidly getting there.

Junko: Guilty...I'm older. And the youth -- whose boomer parents foot the bill -- can seem to get enough new gizmos. I was the same way at that age. I learned new technology intuitively. Now I labor over the instruction manual. I like to think my head is now full of other, more important stuff. ;-)

Tom - I think part of the problem with smart phones is that, realistically, they're computers first with a phone application. So good software that makes the phone component feel more integral would solve the vast majority ofn smart-phone related complaints I hear in my circles.

Rick: I'm with you. I'm tired of switching to an entirely new phone every year or two, having to reprogram and relearn it. I'm actually leaning towards going back to a simpler phone. And I hear that from a lot of friends, too. That may be anecdotal, but I'm wondering if we'll see some burnout among consumers following years of intensive marketing of the latest and greatest.

An aside: just think how complicated it is for Samsung or Apple to turn out a new version of a smartphone every 12-18 months, going from design to store shelves. Any delay in supply along the way, can mean empty space on shelves for big retailers, who allot that space months in advance.

Larry: good question, and I don't know what formulation IDC uses. The announcement doesn't specify. But from the way it's worded, I think it includes all kinds of chips and estimates are based on sales.

Actually, the IDC forecast on chip growth was that the market would increase 6.9% this year, and growth would slow to 2.7% in 2014. I find that kind of disturbing that IDC sees that much of a slowdown after a period of rapid growth. Is that just a cyclical change do you think?

There are a few stories listed below in the announcement of this chat. But if nobody has objections, I'd like to start with the prediction that the chip market will expand 7 % this year, but only at about half that rate next year....thoughts on that?

What a week for news on EE Times! We invite to you to "Meet The Editors" on Friday, Aug. 2 at 10 am PT (1 pm ET) so that we can discuss some of the week's most intriguing stories in a fun and informative one-hour live chat.

Our scheduled guests this week include: Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Rick Merritt, Managing Editor Susan Rambo, Chief Community Editor Caleb Kraft, and others. They'll review some of our hottest stories of the week: the growing chip market, subsidies for electric vehicles, the ethics of patents, the future of Moore's Law – even a giant robotic spider! And we want to hear your take on what these stories mean.

Here are a few stories for briefing, but feel free to ask our editors about any story on EE Times, or any other topic that focuses on electrical engineering today.